Grad school?

Well, you're probably right. I'm not a hiring editor or anything like that. I was just speaking more from my own personal experiences.

 

This is not true. It certainly isn't the rule.

 

Becoming that Ph.D. professor you mentioned is actually one of my biggest fears in all of this. The whole, "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" cliche seems to ring true in journalism, especially at smaller schools like the one I went to. I like school and I'm good at it, but I'm scared to get sucked the meaningless side of academia. Hopefully someday I'll turn to teaching after many years in the business, rather than falling into the academic ghetto before I've really learned the business.

I really appreciate all the feedback. As a first-time poster, I was kind of scared I was going to come off as pretentious little prick, so I'm glad to have gotten thoughtful responses. It's such a tricky situation, because I know "Some Guy" makes valid points that reflect the opinions of many people in this business. And money is an issue (my parents could put me through grad school, but I'm not sure if they will -- they're big on me being independent).

It does seem like something that could really provide a big boost, especially for students who can really stand out while in school. Like WaylonJennings, I constantly notice bios of high-level, heavy-hitting journalists that include names of big-time schools.

 

Young Effin Dud,

You asked earlier about your chances of getting in with your GPA and GRE. I don't think you should have a problem. To give you an idea, I got into UNC's and Indiana's master's programs with a 3.0 GPA and 1320-ish GRE. And UNC is arguably on par with the schools you mentioned. Maybe IU too. A friend of mine went to Columbia with similar numbers to yours.

As far as whether or not you should go, I think my standard advice is do it only if you are looking for some kind of personal enrichment or if there is a tangible benefit of which you're sure. It's not going to guarantee you any big-time jobs, by any means. It may open some doors, but who is to say that you couldn't have opened those same doors through hustle and good networking while working? There are benefits to the networks those schools have within the journalism world, but you have to make use of them.

You mentioned an interest in teaching and that might be the biggest benefit to getting your master's. Having that will allow you to dable as an adjunct, if you want, while working. And having the chance to do both simultaneously could let you keep a journalism career going while figuring out if teaching is something you like enough to go after the PhD.

 

It's pretty rare that I hear of someone getting hired to work for a magazine right out of college, regardless of their level of education. Ultimately, if you want to go to grad school to learn how to write well, and to read hundreds of books you otherwise might not have time for, then that might not be a bad choice. I'm all for soaking up as much knowledge as possible if it's financially feasable. But becoming a long-form writer isn't really a skill you can obtain in school, no matter where you go. You could go to Cal Berkley and sit in some of the best journalism lectures in the country, but unless you spend much of college applying those techniques to stories you're writing on a freelance basis for newspaper or magazine editors (not always easy to do) no one is going to hire you to do long-form narrative for a magazine when you graduate. Seith Wickersham got hired by ESPN the Mag from Mizzou after he graduated, but he's one of the few I can think of that was able to pull that off, and I think it was mostly on the strength of his filthy-good clips and his incredible boldness. I think Frank Deford might have done it too, but that was 40 years ago. And he went to Princeton.

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I think if you want to learn how to WRITE, and you can get into Columbia, Mizzou, Cal, Syracuse and such, maybe you should think about the Iowa Writer's Workshop or a creative writing degree from somewhere similar. If you want to work for a magazine, the easier path is still through newspapers or freelance stuff. It's the kind of skill I think you have pick up through the practical education of DOING. At that level, I think how good you are matters more than where you went to school. And you can't get good at writing long-form features just by going to school. I truly believe that.

But I'll defer to those with more knowledge than me on the matter.

 

This is why I'm really interested in finding out as much as I can about what students actually do while in school at each of these places. I have a mentor who went to Mizzou from the same school I graduated from, and he was covering Missouri basketball as a full-time beat for the local paper, which is staffed entirely by grad students. He broke several major stories, and when he left, he took a job covering one of the best MLB beats in the country at a major metro. Obviously, this isn't always the case, but it does show what certain schools can do. And that's what I like about Mizzou -- you're not just sitting in class; you are working full-time for a media outlet, accumulating clips the entire time. The grad school basically owns and operates a local outlet in every medium -- newspaper, magazine, radio, tv.

If I were a hiring editor, it would be tough for me to hire someone who had a big-time degree but no standout clips. It seems that some schools can give you both. If so, then that's what I want.

 

I think we'll have to wait for jgmacg, someone who has been to graduate school(s) and written for magazines, for a real and informed answer to Mr. young effin dud's query.

 

Done the grad school route. It isn't worth it. You learn just as much actually doing it. Regardless of where you do your internship, a hiring editor is going to say, "Sure he spent time at the New York Times....as an intern." It comes down to whether you've got talent. If you've got talent, going to a big-time school can help you get get your name a little closer to the top of the list. If you have no talent, it doesn't matter where you go to school or what degree you've earned.

 

This has come up before and I don't think it's true, and I don't think it's supported by facts. Are we talking strictly about Pulitzer winners? Pulitzer winners for feature writing? Do National Magazine Awards count? Are we talking about the glory days roster of SI? Show me, with actual names, who the Pulitzer winners are, or who the magazine writers are that everyone admires, who went to big-time undergrad or grad programs? You can name some, certainly, but I can name just as many who did not.

 

A proviso: I'm not in any way including myself in DD's or Waylon's list of edumacated magazine writers.

However, before I became a writer, I went straight from my undergrad (PoliSci) into graduate school (Urban Planning). Got my Masters, and then fell into writing, kind of by accident.

Although I'm now at a magazine, my schooling had absolutely zero to do with it. I'm not sure my boss knows I have my Masters or even cares whether I have any university education at all. We've certainly never discussed it. I don't know about any of the other writers at Esquire, but the fact that I don't tells me that it never comes up with them, either.

If you can write, you can write. The paper on the wall doesn't much matter -- I think especially with magazines. I know magazine writers who've spent time in prison, who worked sling jobs, who came in from newspapers (like I did), and yes, I'm sure a few did grad. school. But that's not why they write for magazines. They write for magazines because they can deep throat fat cock to the hilt.

All that being said, like you, dud, I want to teach someday. So I'm glad I have my Masters. I've never used it even once in any practical sense, although I think I've used some of the research and writing skills I developed. But I like having it in hand. It's almost like a parachute I keep tucked away, just in case I ever need to bail from the written world and don't want to end up in a soup line.

So, I guess I'm neither encouraging you or discouraging you. (That's helpful, isn't it?) You don't need a grad. degree to find a job in magazines; it also probably won't hurt, especially if you go to someplace like Columbia, and it might open some doors later on.

True story: After I got my Urban Planning degree, and before I got my newspaper job, I applied to Columbia to do a Masters in Journalism. (School was just a way to postpone real life for me.) I got in, and I got a nice letter saying that I had a scholarship, too. Yippee!

Turns out, the scholarship was for $2,500. The cost of school and a year in NYC was estimated to be $40,000. I nearly went anyway, swallowing the debt, mostly because my Mom thought it would be a great year for me, and I think it would have been, too. Even after I got offered the job at the newspaper, I still nearly went, until my future editor pulled me aside and said, "Why would you go $40,000 in the hole to get a job like the one that you're already getting right now?"

I didn't have a good answer.

But I still wonder what that year would have been like and how different my life would be had I gone.

Usually, though, I wonder most about what girls I might have humped.

 

They would have been proveably, demonstrably average chicks, 18-35

 

I went to grad school and got my Master's in magazine and newspaper journalism, so let me chime in.

I got my undergrad degree in broadcast journalism, but never pursued a job in that after college. After three years of working corporate jobs, I had some money (and a good social life), but I ABSOLUTELY dreaded the five days a week I had to go to work.

Knowing that I loved writing, I decided on being a sports writer (insert pay joke here). Anyway, after three years out school and with no clips or experience, it was pretty clear to me that getting a sports job would be nearly impossible. So, I decided on grad school as the way to get my foot in the door in my career field.

The move paid off for me. I had a couple good internships and am now on my second job in just under two years in the field. I'm glad I went. I learned how to write. I made a good number of networking contacts (vastly underrated bonus). And I had a year away from the grind of working.

True, I grabbed some pretty large debt (I went to one of the "Big Boys"). But for me, I didn't see another way to get on the fast track to my career. I think if a person's on the outside of the career field looking in, so to speak, then grad school is a viable option.

But if a person is already established at a paper and progressing up the chain, I can't honestly say that it will improve your lot that much. I don't think the few people who I went to school with who already had experience really made monster jumps after their master's.

Hope that helps.